Friday, June 24, 2016

Israel and the Promised Land

The land
promised to Israel and the patriarchs is described in the Old Testament as
God’s gift to his covenant people (Gen. 12:1, 7; 13:14-17; 15:18-21; 17:1-8;
Deut. 1:5-8; Ps. 44:1-3). The land
of Palestine was, in
fact, God’s gracious gift to Abraham and his descendants, and carries with it a
salvific significance.[1]

Holwerda
notes that “the promises of salvation have an unbreakable tie to the land. From
the call of Abraham (Genesis 12) to his conflict with Lot
(Genesis 13), from Abraham’s concern about an heir (Genesis 15) to the promise
of the birth of Isaac (Genesis 17), God promises again and again to give the
land to Abraham and his descendants. . . . The land was promised and this
promise was confirmed by an oath sworn by God.”[2]

Despite the
land being God’s gift to Israel,
it never belongs to Israel.
The Promised Land belongs to God. In reality, the land is never at Israel’s
disposal. It cannot be permanently bought, sold, or given to others. Leviticus
25:23 states clearly that, “The land shall not be sold for ever﻿: for the land is mine; for ye are
strangers and sojourners with me.” The Israelites are never owners, but
sojourners of the land in Palestine.

The land
belongs to the God of the covenant, and the Israelites are only tenants in His
land. Psalm 78:54 reminds us that the land is “His﻿﻿ holy border” (NKJV) and “his holy
land” (NIV). Holwerda writes:

“The land is first of all and always
the Lord’s, not Israel’s.Amazingly,
the people Israel are called “aliens and tenants” in theLord’s land
since they have no permanent title to it and possess it withno absolute
legal right to it (Leviticus 25:23). Thus the land never ceasesbeing a
gift, even when Israel
possesses it.”[3]

Furthermore,
Israel’s occupation of the
land in Palestine
is dependent on their faith in Yahweh, and the resultant obedience which flows
out from this faith. During the wilderness wanderings, God warned the Israelites:

“Defile not ye yourselves in any of
these things: for in all these the nations are defiled which I cast out before
you:﻿﻿And the land is defiled: therefore I
do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomiteth out her
inhabitants.﻿﻿Ye shall therefore keep my statutes
and my judgments, and shall not commit any of these abominations; neither any
of your own nation, nor any stranger that sojourneth among you:﻿﻿(For all these abominations have the
men of the land done, which were before you, and the land is defiled;)﻿﻿That the land spue not you out also,
when ye defile it, as it spued out the nations that were before you (Lev.
18:24-28).”

When Israel
turned from the law and commandments of God, Jeremiah wrote, “And I brought you
into a plentiful﻿ country, to
eat the fruit thereof and the goodness thereof; but when ye entered, ye defiled
my land, and made mine heritage an abomination” (Jer. 2:7).

The Lord God
Jehovah, through the prophet Hosea, pronounced an impending judgment upon the
wayward, apostate Israel, “They shall
not dwell in the LORD’S land; but Ephraim shall return to Egypt, and they shall eat unclean things in Assyria﻿(Hosea 9:3).” With Israel’s
continual unfaithfulness to Yahweh, the Lord of the covenant eventually removed
the land from Israel’s
possession (Jer. 17:1-4; 15:13-14). With the culminating rejection of the
Messiah in the Gospels, apostate Israel
ceased to be heirs of the earthly Jerusalem.

Israel cannot
claim possession of the Promised Land apart from faith in the Messiah.
Rejection of Christ Jesus would only mean the rejection of Israel by Yahweh. Holwerda
observes:

“If Jesus is God’s beloved Son, the
one who represents and takes the place of chosen Israel,
what is the status of Old Testament Israel? If the promises given to Israel are fulfilled in Jesus and if in Jesus
the kingdom of God
has appeared, the eternal kingdom promised to David by which God rules his
people Israel,
what happens to those who do not accept the testimony of Jesus? If Jesus is
Emmanuel, the prophesied presence of God with his people, what happens to those
“heirs of the kingdom” who do not acknowledge that presence? . . . Continued possession of promises cannot be
maintained apart from the faith that God gives to his people.”[4]

The Land of Palestine as an Everlasting Possession

Dispensationalists
(and Bible Presbyterians, if I may add) reason that the land of Palestine,
specified by its geographical borders, was given to Abraham and his seed “for
an everlasting possession (Gen. 17:8).” But they fail to understand that God
has intended a better possession for the elect. The saints and patriarchs
“desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to
be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city (Heb. 11:16).” That
“city” is not an earthly Jerusalem or a piece of
land in the Middle East; it is a heavenly
city, the New Jerusalem (Rev. 21:2). In the New Testament, God has expanded the
Abrahamic land promise to include both Jews and Gentiles under the New
Covenant, and the inheritance to include the new heavens and the new earth.

During the
Sermon on the Mount, Jesus taught, “Blessed are the meek: for they shall
inherit the earth (Matt. 5:5).” The meek shall inherit the earth, not just the land
of Palestine. It is
significant that our Lord did not reiterate the geographical boundaries of the
Promised Land. The discerning reader will also notice that “the boundaries of
the promised land were never defined with geographic precision. Various
descriptions were given at various times and under varying historical
circumstances.”[5]

As we shall
see in this series of blog posts on the land promises, the Promised Land is a
typological representation of a physical reality presented in the New
Testament; it points towards the inheritance of the elect, namely, the renewed
creation and the heavenly city of Jerusalem.

The
Abrahamic land promise was unconditional in the sense that, “while enjoyment of
the promised land was denied to those who lacked faith and were disobedient,
the behaviour of that one generation did not result in the nullification of the
promise. Rather, ‘the promise continued even though possession of the land was
deferred.’”[6]

On the other
hand, we must not ignore the conditional
nature of God’s land promise to Israel,
which is reiterated in the Bible.[7] Only
the faithful and obedient Israelites would inherit the land. Immediately after
the rebellion of the Jews on hearing the reports of the twelve spies, God
pronounced His verdict upon the disobedient nation:

“Your carcases shall fall in this
wilderness; and all that were numbered of you, according to your whole number,
from twenty years old and upward, which have murmured against me,﻿ Doubtless ye shall not come into
the land, concerning which I sware to make you dwell therein, save Caleb
the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun. ﻿But your little ones, which ye said
should be a prey, them will I bring in, and they shall know the land which ye
have despised.﻿﻿But as for you, your
carcases, they shall fall in this wilderness (Numbers 14:29-32).”

It is
obvious that God’s covenant is not unconditional in the sense that an apostate
nation will continue to claim the right of inheritance to God’s promise.
Disobedient Israelites will not
inherit the Promised Land.

After the
Israelites were delivered from the land
of Egypt, Moses
proclaimed, “Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the LORD, which
he will shew to you to day: for the Egyptians whom ye have seen to day, ye
shall see them again no more for ever (Exod. 14:13).” But only forty years
later, when Moses addressed the children of Israel, he warned the Jews of the
consequences of disobedience, “And the LORD shall bring thee into Egypt again
with ships, by the way whereof I spake unto thee, Thou shalt see it no more
again: and there ye shall be sold unto your enemies for bondmen and bondwomen,
and no man shall buy you (Deut.
28:68).” Therefore, after pronouncing that the Israelites will
apparently see the Egyptians “no more for
ever (Exod. 14:13),” Moses assured them that they would be brought “into
Egypt again with ships (Deut. 28:68)”
if they failed to keep God’s covenant requirements.

The prophet
Jeremiah, likewise, reiterated the conditional nature of God’s promise to Israel:

“O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as
this potter? saith the LORD. Behold, as the clay is in the potter’s
hand, so are ye in mine hand, O house of Israel. ﻿At what instant I shall speak concerning a
nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull down, and to destroy
it; ﻿If that
nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of
the evil that I thought to do unto them. ﻿And at what instant I shall
speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it;﻿﻿If it do evil in my sight, that it
obey not my voice, then I will repent of the good, wherewith I said I would
benefit them (Jeremiah 18:6-10).”

In the same
manner, the apparently unconditional promise of blessings to the house of Eli
was forfeited through disobedience (1 Sam. 2:30-32). Therefore, “curses of
exile and destruction like that which fell on Sodom andGomorrah will fall on Israel if it
violates the commandments and forsakes the covenant of the Lord; blessings of
prosperity and continuouspossession of the land will fall on Israel if it keeps
the commandmentsand walks in
the Lord’s ways (Deuteronomy 27-29).”[8]

Without
further reference to other parts of Scripture, the prosaic meaning of the
phrase “everlasting possession (Gen. 17:8),” which refers to the land in Palestine promised to
Abraham, appears to point toward an unconditional possession. But a perusal of similar,
seemingly unconditional, promises mentioned in the Bible will show otherwise.
The word “forever” must not be interpreted apart from the other statements made
in connection to the land promise to Israel. It is apparent that no
promise will be fulfilled to a defiant and rebellious people.

Concerning
the words “forever” and “everlasting”, Loraine Boettner elucidates, “But the
same thing [that is, the words “forever” and “everlasting”] is said of the
perpetual duration of the priesthood of Aaron (Ex. 40:15), the Passover (Ex.
12:14), the Sabbath (Ex.31:17) and David’s throne (2 Samuel 7:13, 16, 24). But
in the light of the New Testament all of those things have passed away.”[9] For
example, the high priest of the Church is not of the order of Aaron, but of the
order of Melchisedec. He is none other than our Lord Jesus Christ (Heb. 7:11).
Clearly, the “everlasting” in Exodus 40:15 does not mean until “eternity
future.” The normal, prosaic reading of a sentence does not always convey the
divine, authorial intent. Scripture must always be studied in the light of the
other portions of Scripture. This is the Reformed, hermeneutical principle of
the analogy of faith.

In
his polemic against Christian Zionism, Stephen Sizer raises similar criticisms
against the dispensational understanding of the Abrahamic land promise. He
writes:

“The statement God made
to Abraham that the land would be “an everlasting possession” is not
necessarily understood in literal terms. Insisting on literal fulfillment is a
double-edged sword. In 1 Chronicles 15:2, for example, David insists that the
Levites would carry the ark of the Lord and minister before Him forever. Was
this fulfilled literally on earth or figuratively in Christ? In 1 Chronicles
23:13 God similarly promises that the Aaronic priesthood would continue
“forever”. The same question may be asked, is this being fulfilled literally
now on earth or figuratively in Christ? In 2 Chronicles 33:7 God says that he
has put his name in the temple in Jerusalem
forever. Is that being fulfilled literally now on earth or figuratively in
Christ and the Church? In 1 Chronicles 23:25, God promises that He has come to
dwell in Jerusalem
forever. Is that being fulfilled literally now on earth or figuratively in
Christ and the Church? Likewise in 2 Samuel 7:12-16, God promises that a
descendent of David will sit on his throne forever. Is that being fulfilled
literally on earth or figuratively in Christ?”[10]

The answers
to Sizer’s rhetorical questions are obvious to any Reformed theologian. As Willem
VanGemeren has aptly answered, “the Messiah is the
fulfillment of the Abrahamic and Davidic covenants, and as such his work
encompasses the realization of all of God’s promises.”[11] We
shall continue to refute the dispensational understanding of the land promises
in the next post.

References

[1] As the theology of the land is too vast in
scope to discuss in any detail in blog posts, the reader is advised to refer to
the following books for more in-depth treatment of this subject: David
Holwerda, Jesus and Israel:
One Covenant or Two? (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm.
B. Eerdmans Publishing Co, 1995); O. Palmer Robertson, The Israel of God,
Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed
Publishing Co, 2000); Philip Johnston and Peter Walker, eds., The Land of Promise (Leicester, England:
Apollos, 2000); Stephen Sizer, Christian
Zionism: Road-map to Armageddon? (Leicester,
England:
Inter-Varsity Press, 2004).

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About Me

This is the blog of a Reformed, Evangelical Christian. I am especially interested in Christian apologetics, meta-apologetics, philosophy, and theology. I believe in engaging the culture in order to challenge its philosophical inconsistencies. It is hoped that some may see the fallacies of their world view, and come to the knowledge of the Truth in Christ Jesus.

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